Episode Transcript
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[00:01:12] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. Amanda Kira, Cuties, joined by my wonderful co host Keith Glasser. How are we doing?
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Great. How are you?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Good.
Today's topic, just going to open it up off the top here. How bad do you want it?
And the reason we want to talk about this is that I think that there are a lot of players out there who like the idea of playing college baseball, think it's cool, think it's something that they want to experience, want to put up that Twitter commit post.
But I question how badly.
Let me, let me rephrase this.
I think there's a little bit of a lack of understanding at times of the time and effort that's required to one, get there and then the time and effort required of you when you actually get to college in that regardless of what level it is, there's 1, 2, 3, juco, naia.
When you get to college, it is, for lack of a better term, it is a job.
And the time and the effort required of you just to hold serve on a college roster is more than some people are willing to take on.
And we see it every year. It happens across the country where guys get to school, they go through their first year and they go, yeah, I don't know if I, I think I just want to kind of do college. I'm not sure if I'm ready to do all this.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Different strokes for different folks, if you will.
But it's, it's a lot. It's a lot. And having gone through it as a coach and as A player.
The season doesn't start in February.
Season starts the minute you get on campus. And it's six months of preparation for a three month sprint is really what it comes down to.
And the players are asked to do a lot.
From the weight room, from practice to extra skill work, to school work, to social life, there's quite a bit that needs to be taken on. And I think that sometimes it's underestimated what's required of you when you get there. Never mind the guys who go above and beyond, but just the bare minimum of what you have to do to even be a part of one of those teams at any level.
And then there's the effort and the focus that is required to even get into that small percentage of guys who get to go and play college baseball.
So I'm going to kick it over to you to kind of talk through some of that, which is, I think once again, it gets underestimated.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: The, the whole thing, the whole kit and caboodle.
[00:04:31] Speaker B: You can do the kit and caboodle if you want. I thought maybe focus on kind of the underestimation of what needs to be done to even get into a position to get recruited.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, I, I think that it's, it's so difficult.
Right. And it's, I don't say that lightly and I, and I don't say it to scare anybody about what this is like.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions out there is that I'm good here, so I can be good anywhere. And that's just not true.
Right.
And because the reality is that 8 point, you know, it's 7.9 to 8.1% of kids are going to go play high school or college baseball. Excuse me. So, you know, that's 92% of people that are not playing baseball past high school at the collegiate level.
And you know, what it takes to do that is a whole hell of a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time, energy and effort spent on honing your craft, understanding the game, understanding how to play the game, you know, your skill acquisition, things of that nature. And we've probably touched on all these things individually over the course of this podcast for the last three years.
But, you know, the reality is that that's just the bare minimum of you being able to get your foot in the door to go play in college.
And that depends at the program you're going, like, what you're looking at, you know, the programs you want to play for, the programs they want you to play for them.
And then we get into a whole other conversation of, you know, what certain programs value and what they're looking for.
And maybe they don't need a catcher because they already have four. But the flip side to that is, yeah, maybe they need a catcher, but they, they're looking for a catcher who can really catch and throw and can receive the baseball. And we can live with them not being super offensive for the first year or two and we can teach that into them. Or like we want a really offensive catcher and a guy that we can put behind the dish who can catch a little bit and we'll coach him up on that side. But we want a guy who can run and you can do some of those things, but you're a 7, 7 runner. Like that gets you off the list.
And I think like what a, what a college baseball player looks like and, and how it's recruited and played out through the process is it's different for every single individual person. And this is, this is probably the hardest thing to wrap your mind around as a, as a kid, as a parent, as a high school coach, as a travel coach, whatever it might be, right? The hardest thing I think, to kind of wrap your mind around is that every, every kid who's going to go play in college, generally they do a lot of the same things.
Well, but they're what they do their best, their, their outliers at.
And what I mean by that is like, you can, you can be recruited to go play Division 1 college baseball and be a high level defender in the middle of the field, at center, at short, behind the dish, and maybe not be the best offensive player, but show flashes and skills in which like, yeah, we could work with that because if I stick that kid in the middle of the field, he's going to save me more runs than we're going to give up.
And there's some, there's some skill set there that I can work with from an offensive standpoint.
And you might look at it from the outside and be like, well, I'm a better hitter than that kid who's a catcher and he's going to play at Marist and no one's really recruiting me or I'm only being recruited by Division 3. Like, yeah, but he's a way better defender.
He can really catch, he can really throw, he can really block, he can controls the running game, he has a feel for the game, he's in command of everything behind the plate. Like that stuff means something in the recruiting process and how it goes along, right? And you know, the shortstop, like, yeah, he's a little light from an offensive standpoint, but that kid is never out of position. He's always in the right position, single cut, double cut, you know, floating in the center of the field, commanding the infield, taking fly balls, telling everyone where to go, like having a high motor, all of those things.
And I think, like, that those, I don't want to call them intangibles, Andy, but I suppose that they probably are intangibles. Would you, Would you agree? Are those, are those intangibles I'm kind of driving at?
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's less.
It's, you know, you're getting away from some of the metrics and you're getting into.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I guess what I'm trying to drive at is, like, it's not, it's not always going to be metric driven.
And in this era of recruiting and stuff like that, we can get away from some of those numbers. And, and by no means am I saying, like, a guy who's hitting 120 is gonna, you know, find himself a spot in the SEC in high school, right?
But there's gonna be flashes there of like, yeah, this kid, like, you know, he's good.
You know, I, I think that that's the hard part to kind of wrap your mind around. But I think, you know, from a what it takes to get there kind of standpoint is more the, the time, energy and effort and the willingness to do what it takes to get to where it is that you want to go. And that's a hard thing to do, I think, at a young age.
And I think it's a hard thing to do to make that decision yourself as a player, because you're probably going to have some people in your ear telling you that, you know, you can do this, you can do that, you can do this.
And, you know, the reality is, and I don't know if some of those people who are telling you that stuff actually know what it is they're talking about, right? Like, and I don't mean that from a negative standpoint. I just think they're misinformed. Like, you can have your parents tell you, like, yeah, you can play at LSU. Like, you're at 78 mile an hour, left hander with no breaking ball. Like, you ain't pitching in the sec, dude. It, like, I don't care who you are unless you break your arm and you're Henry Rowan Gardner next year, like, you ain't going there.
So, like, they're like, there's, there's a certain, you know, a level of having a, you know, feel for what's going on. And I think that, you know, understanding, like, you know, even if you don't know where you fit, being able to have a conversation or a look in the mirror of what you're good at and what you're not good at and, you know, look around and see who's better than you and what do they do and how do I get to that level and, you know, incremental steps from there. And I think that, you know, from a what it takes standpoint, like, there's a high level of sacrifice, like, you're going to have to miss things and you're going to have to, you know, sit some things out with your friends and, you know, things like that if this is what you want to do when you get to the high school level, because if this is ultimately what you want to do, there's very few people out there that can just roll it out and be really good.
You're going to have to put in the time, you're going to have to get more physical. You're going to have to be in the weight room, you're going to have to defend, you know, you're going to have to be able to throw strikes. And, you know, I just think that it's. It's a little bit.
It's a lot tougher than it looks from the outside.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And you spoke to kind of the competitiveness of it, the. The con. The floor of college baseball has risen so much because of all the stuff that's happened in recent years. Like, that's on.
You can't argue it. It's kids who could play college baseball 10 years ago. There's some kids who just simply wouldn't be recruitable. In today's world.
It's pretty routine to see upper 80s, low 90s, arms at the division, at the division three level now. And that's the world that we live in.
And with that rise in competition, you have to be willing to outwork some people to get there.
And kind of the crazy part about it is, like, if you're not willing to do that now, to get there when you get there, if you get there, what you're doing right now, most likely, like, that's the bare minimum. When you get to college, you don't get an option. So, like, if you're not willing to work that hard now, college baseball is going to be something that is not very enjoyable for you. So you gotta love the work.
You Gotta love the, the, you know, the process, if you will, of putting your head down, of going to the gym five days a week, like, that's kind of where it starts. And like, if you're, if you're a family member listening to this or you're a player listening to this, like, these are the conversations you need to be having as a group, as a family, and these are the conversations you need to be having with yourself around, you know, am I willing to do, am I willing to put in the work to get there? Because there's just not that many kids that are going to be able to get there without doing it. And even the kids who, the kids who commit to these highest level schools, yeah, they're super talented. But the kid who's committing to lsu, I guarantee you, that kid busts his ass.
He's talented, but like, you don't get to play at that level because if you, if you don't bust your ass now, as soon as you get there, you're it, it's over.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Well, you're weeded out immediately.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you're with, you with wolves now.
You go to lsu, you go to Wake Forest, you go to any of these schools, like, they're all savages. And that's what people don't understand. They're savages. Those kids work their ass off. And the kids who don't, they get weeded out really quick. And there is a very, very, very small percentage of kids who can compete at the college level without working their asses off. And if you're not willing to do it now, that's why we started this off with like, how bad do you want it? Like, if you're not willing to do that now, you got to really think about whether this is something for you or not.
Yeah.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: I mean, and I think that it's, it goes beyond the superficial. Like, I've played all these games and I've, you know, spent all this time. Like, that's all well and great, but like, you have to intrinsically want to do this.
Like, kind of like the old.
Was it Pete Rose who said he'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball? Like, it's kind of, it's very similar to that. Like, you have to be an uber competitive person and you need to understand what it, like what needs to be done and how, how far are you willing to go to make this happen?
And if it doesn't work, hey, you laid everything out there and, you know, you did your best, but I'd be willing to bet that if you have the requisite skill set and you go work your ass off over the course of the next four or five months, like, you're gonna find yourself with some options over the course of the next couple months. And I like, you know, I think, like, you know, for us, you know, with what we do and not to name names, but with some of the kids we've worked with that are, you know, have signed to go play college baseball or, you know, a good portion of them, when they started with us, like, they had the requisite skill set, but, like, they went and worked their asses off and got a hell of a lot better, that gave them more options and better options for them academically and athletically for their baseball career.
But that doesn't happen if they don't have that kind of intrinsic work ethic and want to do this, you know, so it's.
It's fun to see on this side.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: It.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: You know, it's obviously a little different, but it's also, you know, those are the kids that you want to recruit. When we coached those kids that you didn't have to question the work ethic because he wants it that badly. And then they get there and, like, it. It ratchets up. And, you know, I can't understate how much it's going to ratchet up when you set foot on campus. Like, it could be a tad bit of shock if you're not used to competing in ultimately everything it is that you do.
It's just what it is.
And if that's something you shy away from, like, this might not be for you, or teach yourself to be uber competitive.
And, you know, I don't know, like, I was. I'm competitive to this day.
I race my son every day. We had seven races today on the way home from walking from the sidewalk to the driveway. We do it almost every day.
Sometimes I let him win, sometimes I don't. But, like, we also raced cars down a track tonight, and every car that, you know, my car won, I took one of his.
So, you know, that's how it goes.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: Just life lessened.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: I like, but, like, you know, the. But the. What I'm driving at is like, you. You. Like, at some point, like, you. You. You have to step into that arena and be okay with it.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And it.
I'll kind of end with this. Like, the games are the easy part.
The games are the easy part. And.
But that's not enough.
You know, it's just. It's just not enough for guys like you can play a lot of games and you should play a lot of games, like playing baseball, like old boss of mine, who I love to death, and I think he listens to the podcast like Murph. He told me something when I, when I was coaching with him that at bats and inning pitch, they're gold.
It's the most priceless commodity in baseball because that's how you get better in game.
But you don't get those opportunities in game unless you do all the other shit ahead of time. If you don't practice well, if you're not in the weight room, like, you don't get those opportunities.
And for a lot of guys, they think that games are enough.
But if you want to get into the mix in this process, and you want to get into the mix when you're in college, you're ultimately judged by what you do off of the field, because what you do off of the field in preparation is what allows you to be good on the field.
You know, I, I think it's, you know, for the NFL football fans out there, like their practice week is what allows them to play well on Sunday, Right. Like, Tom Brady didn't show up and dice people up every Sunday because he half assed it, you know, Monday through Saturday, like, he busted his ass all week so that he could be good on Sunday, you know, and he did his film study, he did all that stuff. Like everybody's seen those interviews. Like he was neurotic about it, but that's also why he was good. And I'm not saying that you need to be Tom Brady, but you have to fall in love with doing this stuff without the uniform on, you know?
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And I also think, like, to wrap it up on my end, it's the same thing that's going to happen and this is why we can teach life through baseball. Because the same thing that's going to happen when you leave college, baseball, right, like, you're going to have to enter into some semblance of a competitive environment when you leave. Like, do you just want to be an average person for the rest of your life? Or, like, can you take that work ethic and put it towards whatever career it is that you're going to go so you can kind of get to the peak of what it is you want to do or, you know, find success for, for you and your family moving forward? And it's not like, you know, you might not play baseball if you listen to this podcast. It could be basketball, it could be volleyball, it could be football, it could be the military, like, whatever it is, like. But, like, it takes what it takes. And how bad do you want it to get to that point?
You know, it's like the old. You know, how do you eat an elephant?
[00:21:11] Speaker B: One bite at a time, baby.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: One bite at a time, babe.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: No, but you get. You got to have some energy in this. You gotta. You gotta love doing this stuff. That's hard. It's easy to show up on game day. You gotta be willing to show up every other day in between. And that's what.
That's what separates guys. It separates guys in the recruiting process, and then it separates guys when they get to college.
Guys don't play and have success by accident. That's one thing that was abundantly clear to me as a player and as a coach, is that it's not a coincidence that good players play well. It's. Most of those guys are really good at practicing. They're really good off the field. They do all the things that are required of them and more, and that's the general separator. And for high school kids, you need to find that type of energy and that type of commitment so that you can get in the conversation, right? So you can get recruited. And then you got to take that exact same mentality and you got to take it into college and you got to ratchet it up because the competition gets. It only gets more tough.
So anything else you want to add, Coach?
[00:22:21] Speaker A: No, sir.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: All right, well, thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then. Thank you.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
